Black Heart
by Chikai Tenshi
Summary: An assasin and one who has vowed to kill him. A black heart can only be mended by another. That is, unless they kill each other first
1. First Impressions aren't everything

_You find the most wonderful things in the least expected situations…_

He was known as the manslayer with the speed of the gods. Hitokori Battousai, the most powerful and fearsome figure of the Bakamatsu. Even the name was enough to send shivers of fear down a grown man's spine.  

She would kill him tonight. 

       She was ready, she told herself as she was escorted to his chambers. The silence was only broken by the silken blue of her western style dress swirling around her feet. It was low enough in the front, with a slit high enough on one toned leg to make the guard walking with her blush and babble like a school boy. A silver snake coiled itself around her golden arm, and her ebony waves were pinned up in a severe knot, stabbed with pins adorned with jeweled ornaments. A silky veil hid her face, showing only her navy eyes above the material, but they were enough to guarantee her beauty. 

And she felt the cold lethal burn of her knife's sheath upon her thigh.

        "Your quarters for tonight, my lady," the guard bowed deep as he opened the ornate doors. She bowed in turn and surveyed the room with a critical eye as the door clicked shut behind her. The futon was made with military precision, neat enough to make her think that one might have never used it at all. There was little light, and so the only thing she could dimly make out was a sword rack, bearing the hitokori's katana and his wakizashi. She walked silently over to them and ran a delicate finger down an elaborate sheath.  For the first time that night, she shivered. She could almost feel the power radiating from them. How many lives had he taken with these weapons? How much blood had he shed?

            _He had shed too much, taken too many. It would stop with him._

  Sensing that she was not alone, she turned slowly to be met with a pair of glowing eyes.

For a terrified instant she could do nothing but stare at him. With only a single burning candle as a light source, his shadowed face looked like a demon prince's face, flaming red hair and golden cat eyes freezing her to her place.

   "So you are the one I picked this morning?"

His voice was smooth as a babbling brook, with the dangerous undertone of a raging waterfall. She could only nod dumbly, and forced herself not to gasp when he stepped closer.

  In the light he was gorgeous, fine features and an angel's face. A harsh cross-shaped scar on his cheek was the only thing that saved him from the burden of complete perfection. She unconsciously backed up until the hard wood of the wall was pressed against her back, fascinated by the predatory expression on his face as he followed.

  "Frightened, little one?"

Annoyed by his condescending tone, her chin came up in immediate defiance, azure gaze meeting his head on. "No."

  A smirk graced his mouth as golden eyes darkened swiftly in approval. He leaned forward, lips brushing her ear as she felt her heart hammer.

  "You should be."

And he swallowed her gasp with a savage plundering of her mouth. 

            Straining against him as his hands and mouth worked magic, she cursed when she noticed that his legendary hands were inching under her skirt by means of that cursed slit—and towards her knife. Struggling was in vain, as his slight form hid surprising strength. 

            "You move too fast, Battousai," she panted, wincing as he used tongue and teeth to wound and entice. "Let me…"

    Her voice trailed off, eyes widening as he practically threw her on the futon, breath rushing out of her lungs as she landed hard on the thin mat. He smiled, a slow, feral curve of the lip as he watched her shove her disheveled hair out of her eyes. He liked this look on her better; the glittering of annoyance in her eyes, face flushed, chest heaving, and hair wild and free- no trace of the cold and proper geisha remained.     How wrong that had looked on this girl, he mused, tossing his own red bangs to lock his own heated gaze with hers.

            To his slight surprise, she smiled, a small one that spread softly across her features. 

He was more than a little wary as she slinked across the mat, the veil giving her the look of an enchantress. He found himself on his back, and cursed at himself for letting his guard down just for a pair of indigo eyes. 

            Then her lips found his and he could not think of anything at all. 

She was a dash of cool water; she was a spurt of hot flame. She was everything that Himura desired in a lover. Snapping his eyes open, he nearly cursed to see that the crumpled veil still hid almost her entire face, and throwing his head back as she moved a trail of fire down the column of his neck, he moved as to rip it off.

            Her laughter was smoky and intoxicating as sake as she nimbly caught his questing fingers in her own. 

    "Again, Battousai, you move too quickly for me," she admonished.

            His eyes were like molten gold, causing shivers to go roll down her spine. A wicked smile darkened his gaze and she felt faint.

  "I like speed."

            Blinking in shock, she found herself with her back on the silk covers of the mattress, and cursed herself. How could she let her guard down for a pair of amber eyes? She was on a mission too important to be distract-

            _Oh, my_…

  His mouth was at her throat, his hands everywhere at once. Desperate, she clenched the sheets and bit her lip to keep from losing her mind. Gasping for breath only to have it lost to her again, she managed somehow to reverse their positions, which he did not seem to mind. Mind still hazy due to his rough administrations to her fevered skin, she groped for her tanto blindly, nearly crying out in relief when her fingers caught the leather belt that strapped that blade to her thigh. 

            He had worked her dress off of her shoulder, and was currently working on the long range of clasps that ran from the neck in the back. Panting for breath, she slid the knife out without a sound. As he brought his lips to hers, she faltered for an instant.

            But it was an instant too long.

Gasping, she again found herself sprawled on her back, eyes wide in horror.

            His face was mocking, with a humorless smile that did little to compliment his blazing eyes. The blade was in his grasp now, his free hand wrapped around her slender throat.

 "And _what_ do we have here."__


	2. Never Underestimate Your Opponent

Never underestimate your opponent… 

Gasping, she again found herself sprawled on her back, eyes wide in horror.

            His face was mocking, with a humorless smile that did little to compliment his blazing eyes. The blade was in his grasp now, his free hand wrapped around her slender throat.

 "And _what_ do we have here."__

            _Damn it!_

     She gasped in pain as he hauled her harshly to her feet. Tossing the tanto carelessly over his shoulder, his eyes never left hers. 

            "No more hiding."

Her eyes glittered with temper as he ripped the veil off of her face. 

            What he saw took his breath away. 

     Almost as effectively as the dainty fist she planted in his stomach. Earning a grunt of surprise, she dropped to her knee and used one long leg to knock his legs out from under him. 

However, that move he was expecting, as he wrapped long fingers around her ankle. 

            A word more accustomed to back alleys and sordid tea houses burst from her lips as she fell painfully on her stomach, her fingers just mere inches away from the knife embedded in the floorboards.  

    "You _little_ minx," he breathed harshly; dragging her towards him, suffering bruises and bumps as her legs and fists flailed out.    

Gasping for breath, she flailed out, hearing his oath. Panicked, Kaoru reached into her tousled hair, wrapping her fingers around a small, sheathed blade. 

            She never had the chance to use it.

  Grabbing her wrist and twisting it enough to cause her to cry out in pain, Battousai grit his teeth as he tried to dislodge the weapon from her hand. She had, he thought, a grip of steel. He could attempt to wrestle it out of her some more, but he calculated that someone, namely him, would require some serious stitching up afterwards. 

     Pulling her under him, he smashed her mouth to his; taking advantage of the bright blind haze of fury that he knew clouded her vision. The knife clattered to the floor. As soon as the sound registered in both of their fevered minds, Battousai successfully caged her hands and legs under his, hissing in pain when the sharp heel of a shoe made contact with his already abused shin. 

    "Give me one good reason that I really shouldn't just kill you now," he hissed, fighting the urge to moan and lick his wounds. He would be tender in the morning, which infuriated him. 

   "I'm not about to give you the satisfaction of begging for my life, you murderer!"

  Raising an arched eyebrow, he reminded her belatedly that she was the one who had come with an assassination on the mind. 

    She flushed, but regained her dignity as well as she could. Silent, she glared at him from under a dark scowl, one that did nothing to subtract from her beauty. 

   "Just my luck," he mused thoughtfully as he scanned the room for something to tie her with. "Just my bloody luck that I would get a girl who looks like some kind of fairy tale princess to come and try to kill me." 

    She remained silent, narrowed eyes sending all sort of dark threats. 

  "Yeah, well, _hime_, I do not like you too much either." Nudging a blanket roll towards the futon, he used his teeth to undo the rope that held the roll together. Hissing in annoyance as she hit him in the back of the head with those hideous western high heels, he worked as quickly as he could with her resistance, tying her wrists together. He withdrew a small _wakizashi_ from a band on his forearm, chuckling darkly when her eyes widened a small fraction at the sight of the blade.

   "It would serve you right, but fortunately for you, I do not feel like fighting anymore," he informed her. Burying the blade in the wooden floor, he looped the rope around the protruding hilt and, with a sigh, leaned back to assess the damage. 

   The room- he thought darkly- looked as though a tsunami had blown past it. Make that, he sighed, a tsunami with no survivors. The futon was slashed down the middle, it and the pillows standing as innocent victims of the small blade/hairpin. Feathers had rained down to cover the victimized floor, and not many of the tables and pieces of furniture had managed to come out unscathed. 

   The only thing that remained untouched was his sword rack, bearing his _katana _and his _wakizashi_. He did not know if he was to be thankful or bitter.  

  He looked at the girl again, smiled gently. She only could blink at the rapid change of being. Even his eyes had switched from the fiery amber to a subdued, somber violet. 

   "Well, seeing as you tried to kill me, I would say that we've gotten to know each other quite well," he murmured. She failed to answer, only looking away at his gentle searching of her face. 

   "Who sent you?"

Silence.

   "Why were you sent?"

Silence. 

   "What is your name?"

Silence.

   His teeth girt against each other in a sign of annoyance. By the gods, this girl was trying on one's patience! 

   "What. Is. Your. Name. Answer me, girl."

"Kamiya Kaoru."

    He raised a slim eyebrow at her stony voice. "Well. I cannot say that I'm pleased to meet you under the current circumstances, but it…was interesting."

    He rose to pace the room, idly stooping down to pick up random fallen objects. 

"Since I really cannot fathom letting you go after you have really tried to assassinate me, and I have no desire to kill you _yet_, I am afraid that there is only one option, Kamiya-_dono_."

  Her blue eyes widened impossibly. "_Iie…_"

   "_Hai, _I'm afraid so. As of now, Kamiya-_dono, _you are to stay here, with me."


	3. Honor

_A samurai must always fight for what he believes in. _

_ But no one ever said that the road to justice was not littered with hurt_

  


"Girl."

She continued to brush her hair slowly, her eyes not leaving the mirror. His eyebrow twitched in irritation. 

"Kaoru."

Sparing him a brief glance over her shoulder, she resumed fingering her waist length strands. Kenshin suddenly had an inexplicable urge to run his hands through them. 

He shook his head slightly to clear them of those traitorous thoughts. 

_I must be losing my mind..._

"You are to remain here until I decide what to do with you. You have no hope of escaping, so I suggest that you save yourself the trouble and not try anything."

She looked up and met his gaze in the cool glass. If she held any surprise of his eyes being a deep violet, she showed none. "I see."

He was reluctant to break away from that blue gaze. 

"I trust that I don't need to call any guards to stay outside of this room?"

She satisfied him with a slight nod. With a slight bow, he exited. 

  


Easing gently into the steaming water, Kenshin let out a large breath as the warmth soothed some of the pain away. Damned woman had given him more bruises than he thought possible. She was good, he admitted. 

_But what do I do with her?_

Swearing half heartedly he ran his fingers through the water, watching the water ripple. 

"I cannot hope to keep her with me for long," he said aloud. His voice echoed quietly off of the walls as if to try and support his argument. "She is too much trouble...and what's worse, she might get in the way. I can't afford for a girl to get in the way of an assignment! She has to be killed."

Frowning slightly at the strange feeling that statement gave him, his golden gaze narrowed into dangerous slits. 

"Good God, I don't know the girl. And she tried to kill me! Why in the seven hells would I try and protect her? She has to die. She has to...I mean...doesn't she?"

No one answered. 

  


Sitting for a few moments in deceptively lazy silence, Battousai raised his glistening hands to his face, eyeing them with a mixture of remorse and disgust. 

_The blood would never completely wash off_.

Was it deplorable, he mused, to want her around? She did something to him. For a moment, lost in her eyes, he could forget everything else. He could forget who he was, what he did. 

He could be a young man again, not an assassin with eyes that told too much sorrow.

_Not a man with a black heart. _

He let his hand crash down on the peaceful water's surface, scowling darkly. The resounding clap echoed in the chamber, reminding him that he could afford no such luxury. He could not forget, no matter how tempting. 

  


_What have I become? When will the bloodshed stop?_

He found he couldn't answer that question. He rose from the water, shivering in the cool night air. As he wrapped a towel around his waist, his finger traced the cross shaped scar on his smooth cheek. He was fighting for a cause, he reminded himself. He was fighting for a place where peace would reign and no blood would be spilled.

_I have shed too much. Slain too many. But by God, it will end with me._

  


Kaoru gazed at her face in the mirror and cursed her luck. To be kept as a prisoner with the Battousai was an option that she had never once considered. _Kami_, she would rather have had him slit her throat with her own dagger than to be kept as if she were some sort of pet!

_I have failed my village. I have failed my family._

She could no longer bear her reflection and looked away, sobbing harsh, silent tears. What would she do? She could not go back to her village now- not with the shame in knowing that she had been bested by the one that she had come to kill. 

_Father, forgive me. I could not avenge you..._

She wiped away her tears with her fists, ashamed with her weakness. What would the Battousai do with her? Would he kill her? Sell her as a slave? 

_Or worse...would he keep me for himself?_

She shook her head vigorously as if to expel that last thought. A samurai would likely not keep around a girl who had tried to kill him. Yes, he would kill her, and she reluctantly admitted that if he did so chose to kill her, she could do nothing against him. But she was a samurai as well, she mused. If he planned to kill her, then by _Kami_, she would not let him have his way. 

Rising from her kneeling position, Kaoru quickly scanned the room as she listened for her captor's return. A small smile crossed her lips when her eyes landed on what she was looking for. 

_Hi_s _wakizashi_...__

Kenshin briskly ran a towel through his hair as he walked to his room. The weapons that the girl had used against him clanked gently against his leg as his thoughts crowded his head. 

_What am I supposed to do with her? I cannot hope to keep her with me...can I?_

Fighting the urge to hit his head against a nearby wall, he quickened his pace, cursing the silent night.

_Matte...what was that?_

His ear pricked up at a small sound. It was a blade being drawn from a sheath. 

_ Kaoru..._

The towel had barely touched the ground as Kenshin threw the door open to his room. 

"KAORU!"__

_Author's note: I'm so sorry if this chapter was really bad, but I felt kind of guilty that I hadn't updated this story that I just pumped one out in less than half an hour. So...gomen! *bows*_


	4. Things aren't always what they seem

_They say that your life flashes before your eyes when you die._

_ Sometimes I worry that your face would be the only thing that I'd see._

The feel of the sword in her hands was familiar- after all, she had given a sword at the age of four. But the power that radiated off of this small dagger in her hand was mesmerizing. She gazed, spellbound, at the reflection of her eyes, watching them narrow and harden with resolve.

"He killed my father," she sobbed out, her eyes welling with hot tears. "And I have failed to kill him tonight."

"Father, forgive me..."

Raising the _wakizashi _above her head, she closed her eyes and gritted her teeth in expectation as she plunged the weapon down towards the vulnerable skin of her abdomen.

"KAORU!"

Startled, Kaoru's hand jerked and led the blade away from its steady path to her stomach. Instead it glanced her side, making her gasp in pain as warm blood flowed hot down her skin. She bit off an oath as the dagger fell from her hands, and clamped her hand down on the wound.

"Kaoru!" He fell to his knee and ignored her protests as he went about wrapping her wound with a few strips of dark blue cloth. Kaoru dimly noted that it was a piece torn from his gi, and wondered briefly of it.

"Are you all right?" he asked her frantically, his gaze filled with concern. She stared dumbly at him, unable to speak. He shook her gently, noting that the wound was deeper than he had thought. "Kaoru, answer me!"

"Battousai?" she murmured, her eyes glazed in shock. "What..."

"_Baka_!" he shouted, stepping back from his handiwork. The makeshift bandage was soaked a deep navy from her blood. The sight did nothing to improve his mood. "What were you _thinking_!"

She blinked rapidly, raised an unsteady hand her throbbing temple. "...I ...eh?"

Cursing at the both of them, Battousai ran a shaking hand through his hair. He was standing, he knew, on uncertain and foreign ground. His control was shaken, his heart racing, and his breaths were unsteady.

There should have been no reason, he knew, absolutely no reason to why a wound, no matter how deep, would shatter his composure this thoroughly.

She was shivering now, her teeth chattering as the wind blew gustily through the open _shoji_. Muttering under his breath, Battousai yanked the thick blanket off of his futon and wrapped it around her.

"_Baka!"_ he hissed again, barring in his temper. "_Baka!_"

Her mind was beginning to clear, and she registered and resented the way that he was reprimanding her.

"_Monster!_" she screamed at him, shoving him away as he gaped at her openly. Her wound throbbed in wild protest, but she paid it no heed. "Will you not even allow me the honor of –"

"Honor of what!" he roared, watching, disgusted at himself as she shrunk away. "The honor of running away from your troubles? If anything, you should want to stay alive to get your revenge!"

She stared at him, not quite sure if he knew what he was implying.

"I am no fool," he sighed, raking a hand through his hair again in agitation. "I know that in order to get your revenge, you must kill me."

"Do you?" For the life of her, she could not begin to understand this man.

"I am no fool. Nor am I deaf. I heard your silly little speech."

"Do you wish to die?"

She waited with baited breath for his answer, her huge eyes never leaving his tense profile.

He turned back and offered her a crooked, bittersweet smile. "What difference would it make? I do not live for myself, but for my employer, my lord. Such is the life of a samurai."

Her eyes narrowed in honest bewilderment. "How can you talk of life in such a way? Each life belongs to each person. It is his decision to cherish it or..."

"Take it?" Battousai laughed, infuriating her with his mockery. "Ah, _hime-chan_, you have a lot to learn."

"I take it you will be teaching me?"

He shrugged lazily, his earlier panic all but gone. Temper was bring color back into her cheeks, he noted gratefully. "Who better?" His expression sobered as he checked her bandages. "You will be sore in the morning. I will have to draw you a bath then, I suppose."

She blushed and tried to shy away from his gentle probing. "It is not necessary..."

His eyes laughed at her, and her own blue gaze widened in slight surprise as she saw the emotion swirling in their violet depths. "'Tis the least I can do for a hostage."

She _couldn't _laugh with him, so she bit her lip until she tasted blood. "I thank you." He waved a casual hand to her reluctant gratitude.

"Sleep now," he told her, pausing with one hand on the shoji. "You will be sore in the morning, but it will pass with time." He slid the paper screen and turned to look at her once more before he left. She looked utterly vulnerable in the faint moonlight, her features sad and lonely as she stared at the tatami mats, and he felt a wave of undescribable emotion wash over him.

"And Kaoru?"

She looked up at him, her eyes impossibly blue in the light. "_Hai?"_

"It isn't Battousai. My name. " He smiled gently at her. "It is Himura Kenshin."

And with that, he slid the _shoji _door shut silently. And turned the key.

_ They say that if you hold on too tightly to something, it will slip through your fingers. Sometimes I'm more afraid that if I hold on to you at all, you'll break beneath my hands. _

AN: Ahhh! SAT II 's this Saturday!


	5. Thaw

_The two most important emotions in life are love and hate._

_Everything else is just a detail. _

The sun shimmered impatiently through the thin paper doors, bathing the shivering form with its impassive warmth.

Kaoru had not slept well.

She had barely even slept, lying awake late into the night, her eyes wide and unseeing.

The door snapped open, forcing her to bolt upright into a sitting position, tugging uselessly at the sheets to keep a presence of propriety. Her side wound burned in protest, but she forced herself to ignore it. Who in the seven hells could keep a sense of modesty at such an ungodly hour? Her mouth was open, ready with hot words to be fired at the hapless man who dared enter her room…

And then he smiled, his blood bangs falling into his unusual eyes, and she was shaken.

"Good morning, Kaoru- _dono_."

"Ah…" She gulped and raised a vain hand to her tousled hair. "Good morning."

He knelt at the edge of her futon and began to empty the basket that he held. "I trust that you slept…" He looked at her and his smile widened. "That you slept?"

She had caught his grin and resented it. "_Hai. _I slept"

He had slept as well, he mused, spreading the bandages and medicinal cream out on the floor. Less than satisfactory, as thoughts of the girl slumbering in the next room had had him tossing and turning well into the night.

He snipped a length of bandage. That was to be expected, after all.

"I think that these will suit your wound better, Kaoru-_dono_."

"Why?"

He merely smiled. Her fingers itched to trace his curved lips.

Or to break his pretty nose.

"Because these, Kaoru-_dono_, are bandages. What you have on your wound is a torn _gi_."

"No." She wanted to smack him. She wasn't talking about the stupid dressings. "Why are you taking care of me?"

He thought it over for a second before shrugging. "Because."

"Because why?"

"My, you seem talkative this morning."

Kaoru bit down the scathing words that had leapt onto her tongue. "Because why?"

He tightened her dressings, clucking softly with his tongue as she gasped with the sting of the alcohol. "Because, Kaoru.-_dono_, you belong to me."

She sputtered with indignation. "I beg your---"

"And I take care of what is mine," he continued, bowling over her protests. "Best keep that in mind, ­_hime-chan_."

She fought down the urge to scream.

"Of all the sick, delusional—"

He laughed softly, cutting her off. "Don't get too excited, _hime-chan_. You might rip your bandages. And that wouldn't do."

A calloused finger trailed gently across her exposed shoulder, and she sucked in a gasp. Blue eyes watched in frozen fascination as he leaned forward, his warm breath fanning against her neck, his hair brushing against her flesh. Her eyes fluttered shut. She found herself leaning closer, feeling his other hand travel up the side of her neck.

_Oh, kami_…

"Then I'd be here all morning, reapplying them…" Kenshin's voice was low enough to send a chill down her spine. Her eyes snapped open, and she stiffened with a small cry of distress.

_What am I doing?_

Kaoru attempted to mask her trembling for a shudder of disgust. The wide grin that split his face as he sat back showed her that he didn't quite believe it.

They sat in silence for a moment, the only sound the quiet snip of his scissors and his quiet humming.

"Why don't you kill me?" Kaoru asked him quietly.

The snipping ceased, and she clenched her fist in the quiet.

"Why do you let me live?"

He smoothed her bandages and sat back on his heels, smiling gently. "All done. Don't try to kill anyone else for a week or so, though. It was a pretty deep wound."

"Answer me!" she screamed in agitation. She slammed her hand on the smooth wood of the floor. "What could you possibly have to gain, keeping me here?"

He looked up at her, his odd eyes unreadable. "Those reasons, Kaoru—_dono_, are my own."

Shocked, she watched as he rose a gentle palm to her cheek. "Did I put those there, _­hime-chan?_" His lips twisted in a wry movement, and his gaze shone with an emotion she didn't know if she wanted to identify.

_Could that be… regret?_

She tried to smile, could only stare. "I…"

He stood, gathering his materials and walking towards the door. "Be ready in about a half an hour—breakfast will be served then."

She watched the door close in silence.

_

* * *

_

Kenshin grunted as he crashed into a smirking, spiky haired boy.

"Those reasons, Kaoru-_dono_, are my own," the teenager mimicked, amusement clear in his voice. "How lame! You should have said: you're really pretty, even though you tried to slaughter me last night, and I'm really lonely here with only the _kitsune_ and the weasel girl to look at--"

He barely flinched as a frying pan bounced off of his head.

"Sagara Sanosuke, I heard that!"

"Eh, so what," Sanosuke turned his attention back to the bemused older man. "So are you going to keep her?"

"Sanosuke, you know that this is a human being, and thus not a thing to be kept or discarded," Kenshin shrugged and turned to walk towards the kitchen. "And, yes, I'm going to keep her."

A pillow flew out of Kaoru's room and struck Kenshin full in the face. He fell to the ground, eyes swirling.

"_Oro!"_

Sanosuke watched his friend flutter to the ground and smirked again. "I think she heard you."

_

* * *

_

Kaoru lifted a self conscious hand to her hair, blinking at her reflection in the mirror.

_Is that me?_

She grimaced in distaste, cautiously touching a finger to the purple smudges that marred her skin. She briefly recalled the dull pain that had bloomed under the skin when she had fallen during her scuffle with Battousai.

_"Did I put those there, ­hime-chan?"_

Could it have really been regret shining in those odd eyes? Sadness?

He had been so close…

She shook her head slowly, dispelling those troubling thoughts. She could not afford to let her guard down, she reminded herself. She had to get back to her village.

Kaoru defiantly rubbed at the goose bumps that had blossomed on her skin.

_Insufferable imbecile_.

She turned warily when the knock came at her _shoji_.

Green eyes cautiously peered through the crack between the paper and the wall. Kaoru tensed, silently reaching for a blade she belatedly realized wasn't there.

The _shoji_ was thrown open, revealing a petite beauty with jade eyes and a large grin.

"HI! I'm Misao, you must be the girl Kenshin brought home last night!" The girl chattered, tossing her long braid behind her shoulder. "Wow, you're pretty—can you tell me how to put my hair up like yours was last night? I know that Kenshin didn't want us to disturb him, but I couldn't help but notice you being led in and I saw your hair and I thought it was pretty and--"

Kaoru felt slightly faint as she struggled to keep up.

"—and I thought, wow, that must be hard to do--"

"Misao-_chan_, do not frighten the girl," a smooth voice chided. Kaoru, slightly overwhelmed, looked up and met the gaze of a lovely woman with cinnamon eyes and a wicked smile on her crimson mouth. "She looks like she's going to fall over any minute."

Kaoru flushed hotly and reached to nervously tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear. "Oh," she murmured, "It's quite all right."

The woman arched an elegant eyebrow and bowed slightly. "My name is Takani Megumi. I do hope that the weasel girl hasn't scared you."

Kaoru returned the gesture, envying the woman's poise. "Kamiya Kaoru."

The youngest girl childishly stuck out her tongue at the older woman. "_Kitsune_, you have no right to call me names! Just because your _tori-atama_ of a boyfriend calls me that doesn't mean that you can!"

"No one gave you any right to be so annoying so early in the morning, but you don't see me complaining, do you?"

"You're complaining right now!"

"Misao, use your head. How can I be complaining if I just said that I wasn't?"

The smaller girl let out a scream of frustration that caused Kaoru to feel slightly afraid for her life. "MEGUMI, I SWEAR--"

There was a polite cough that somehow managed to cut through the din. Three heads swiveled to regard the tall, handsome man who leaned comfortably against the door frame.

"Misao."

Ice blue eyes were subtly—very subtly—laced with humor. His voice was quiet and reserved, but Kaoru recognized a sort of power that lay quietly beneath the tranquility.

_Just like papa…_

Her rueful musing was interrupted by Misao's shriek of joy. Megumi and Kaoru winced as they watched the girl latch onto the taller man's frame.

"Aoshi-_sama_, I didn't know when you would get back, and I was so worried and you really should start taking assignments closer to home and--"

Megumi smiled apologetically at the shell shocked Kaoru, patting the younger girl on the shoulder. "She's not always like that, Kaoru-_san_."

Kaoru nodded, dumb struck. The older man managed to bow politely towards her while still listening to Misao's chatter as she threaded a slim arm through his.

Something that looked suspiciously like fox ears popped up on Megumi's head, and she cackled, making Kaoru's hair stand on end.

"No, Kaoru-_san. _Sometimes she's worse."

_

* * *

_

The man's name, Kaoru discovered at breakfast, was Shinomori Aoshi. He, like Battousai, was an assassin. Unlike Kenshin, however, he made sure that he was not well known.

"It's bad for business," he explained, his lips forming what Kaoru was already beginning to identify as his almost-smile.

Misao simply adored him, and refused to leave his side the entire morning. Aoshi-_sama, _she explained, had been sent on a mission to Hokkaido.

Sanosuke and Megumi bantered affectionately at the other end of the table. Kaoru couldn't help but smile a little at the mismatched couple. Sanosuke, with his unruly hair, rough exterior, ready laugh and warm heart, seemed out of place next to Megumi's polished elegance and cynical barbs. But, Kaoru mused, the woman had been kind to her.

"_Oi, jou-chan_," Sanosuke called, immediately deciding to adopt the nickname for the girl. "Your rice is getting cold."

She blushed, and immediately picked up her chopsticks, pausing for a second as a chill of apprehension raced up her spine. Narrowing her eyes, she looked up to see Kenshin watching her, an odd little smile upon his lips. He nodded in her direction, his eyes challenging as he raised his cup in a small salute. She nearly smiled.

"_Papa?"_

_His body. On the floor. She clamped her small hands over her ears as if to keep the sanity from slipping out. She fell to her knees and gagged as something soaked into her yukata. There was so much blood. _

_He was gone. She was alone. _

_So much blood. _

_A sound in the corner. A man. He wasn't facing her. She turned, a scream bubbling in her throat as she reached belatedly for her weapon. _

"_No, hime-chan." The voice wasyoung, and almost apologetic. She moaned in grief and lashed out, heard his grunt of surprise. _

_He turned, his face betraying his shock even in the dim light. _

_Golden eyes._

_No_. _No, you can't._

Kaoru looked away. The brightness of the dining hall seemed to fade into black.

_How could you forget? This man…this monster killed the only man you loved. _

_And eventually...eventually he would go on to kill Soujiro as well._

_

* * *

_

_No matter how hard I try, I cannot deny the truth. _

_There is never an escape. _

_Author's Note: Oooooh, who's Soujiro? Her brother? Her fiancée? Hmmmmm…_


End file.
